News

​‘The Lucky Ones’

June 14th, 2017

Three young boys sitting under a Nippi tree - photo by Amal Dei

One woman’s journey from war-torn South Sudan and back again -- all to fulfill her dream of setting up a library

FARGO - Twenty-two years after Amal Dei escaped South Sudan’s civil wars, she returned loaded with donated backpacks, children’s books, T-shirts, and pencils. She knew what she wanted; as a child she never had the opportunity to learn to read.

She returned to the Gambela Region, across the Nile River in Ethiopia where hundreds of thousands of South Sudanese fled decades…

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​Breast milk donations

June 14th, 2017

A one-day old infant lies in her mother’s arms at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at St. Mary’s Children’s hospital in Duluth, Minn. The mother, still recovering from an emergency C-section, feeds the child a bottle.

However, the infant is not drinking her mother’s breast milk from the bottle. Nor is she drinking formula. The infant is drinking the breast milk of a stranger.

Jaclyn Haak, a lactation consultant at Sanford Health, said in her experience, donated breast milk…

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Former DAPL Security Speaks Out, Damning TigerSwan Tactics

June 8th, 2017

By C.S. Hagen
CANNON BALL
- Speaking from a nondescript hotel room, a former DAPL security employee revealed secret agendas, illegal activities, and widespread drug use among private security employees hired by Energy Transfer Partners to protect the company’s interests along to the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota.

Describing an agenda that included setting company vehicles on fire, stealing equipment, and intentionally riling up protesters, Kourtni Dockter, 22, of Bismarck,…

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​North Dakota will not join U.S. Climate Alliance

June 7th, 2017

BISMARCK - North Dakota will not be joining the U.S. Climate Alliance, even though the state’s neighbor, Minnesota, joined on Monday.

So far, the states of Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Minnesota, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, have joined the growing movement to stand by the United State’s commitment to the Paris Climate Accord signed under President Obama’s Administration.

"The governor does not plan to join the…

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TigerSwan and Government Twist Narrative Over Dakota Access Pipeline

June 6th, 2017

By C.S. Hagen
cshagen@hpr1.com

CANNON BALL - As at Wounded Knee in 1973, the Federal Bureau of Investigation used informants to infiltrate the anti-Dakota Access Pipeline camps, according to government emails leaked to media outlet The Intercept.

The claim was widely believed true by activists in the Standing Rock camps against the Dakota Access Pipeline, but was never proven until now. Law enforcement from five different states, the North Dakota National Guard, the National Sheriff’s…

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​Fall From Grace

June 5th, 2017

Pastor Grace Murray, formerly of Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ, after she was fired - photo by C.S. Hagen

Local pastor claims racism and church infighting behind her sudden dismissal
UPDATE: Protesters picket church Wednesday evening - at end of story

FARGO - For years, Pastor Grace Murray opened the doors of Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ to New Americans and the LGBT community, and then she was fired.

Despite a massive banner hanging outside the 90-year-old structure at 901 Broadway, declaring “We leave judging to God,” Murray and church members said the church council…

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​Standing Rock Leaders Acquitted

May 31st, 2017

By C.S. Hagen
MANDAN - Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault II and Councilman Dana Yellow Fat were found not guilty Wednesday in a jury trial on charges of disorderly conduct.

Dave Archambault at police line August 2016The charges stemmed from an August 12, 2016 incident near the Cannonball Ranch, where Archambault was filmed pushing his way through a police line, and Yellow Fat grabbed a police officer’s arm. The video was definitive proof of guilt to many critics, but not to Bismarck attorney Erica Shively, of…

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​TigerSwan Counterterrorism Tactics Used to Defeat Dakota Access Pipeline “Insurgencies”

May 30th, 2017

CANNONBALL - Documents leaked to media outlet The Intercept showed private security firm TigerSwan worked closely with law enforcement from five different states, and used military-style counterterrorism measures against the movement opposed to the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Eviction Day at the camps outside of Standing Rock - photo by C.S. HagenActivists were identified, then tracked by name through sightings, Tweets, and Facebook posts. Protest sites were allocated numbers, and detailed accounts of day-by-day actions were monitored and reported to Energy…

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Where have all the pollinators gone?

May 24th, 2017

Katrina Klett grew up running in fields with bees stinging her bare feet. Her parents constantly reminded her to put on shoes, but she rarely listened.

Today, the family company she helps run in Jamestown, Klett Beekeeping, has more than 1,200 commercial bee colonies. She lives in southwest China, but returns home to help her father during the busier months. More than 10,000 miles away and at an elevation where any Red River Valley native would demand an oxygen tank, her main calling is…

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​North Dakota Deadliest State To Work - Again

May 23rd, 2017

By C.S. Hagen

FARGO - North Dakota, once again, topped national charts to become the deadliest state in which to work in America, five years running.

ThThe Bakken - photo by C.S. Hagene 2017 edition of “Death on the Job: The Toll of Neglect,” compiled by the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organization, a national trade union center and the largest federation of unions in America, reported that for the fifth year in a row North Dakota had the most fatalities of workers while on the job,…

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